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Distrust of the curative power within us was our physical fall from Paradise. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 404) |
The inner effort needed to discover one’s soul.*What happens most often when one makes the inner effort that’s needed to discover one’s soul, to unite with it and allow it to govern one’s life, is a kind of marvellous enchantment with this discovery, as a result of which the first instinct is to tell oneself, “Now I have what I need, I have found infinite delight!” and no longer to be concerned with anything else. In fact this is what has happened to almost all those who have made this discovery, and some of them have even set up this experience as a principle of realisation and said, “When you have done that, everything is done, there is nothing more to do; you have reached the goal and the end of the road.” Indeed, a great courage is necessary to go farther; this soul one discovers must be an intrepid warrior soul which does not at all rest satisfied with its own inner joy while comforting itself for the unhappiness of others with the idea that sooner or later everybody will reach that state and that it is good for others to make the same effort that one has made or, at best, that from this state of inner wisdom one can, with “great benevolence” and “deep compassion” help others to reach it, and that when everybody has attained it, well, that will be the end of the world and that’s so much the better for those who don’t like suffering! But…there is a “but”. Are you sure that this was the aim and intention of the Supreme when he manifested? The whole creation, the whole universal manifestation appears at best like a very bad joke if it only comes to this. Why begin at all if it is only to get out of it! What is the use of having struggled so much, suffered so much, of having created something which, at least in its external appearance, is so tragic and dramatic, if it is simply to teach you how to get out of it – it would have been better not to begin at all. But if one goes to the very depth of things, if, stripped not only of all egoism but also of the ego, one gives oneself totally, without reserve, so completely and disinterestedly that one becomes capable of understanding the plan of the Lord, then one knows that it is not a bad joke, not a tortuous path by which you return, a little battered, to the starting-point; on the contrary, it is to teach the entire creation the delight of being, the beauty of being, the greatness of being, the majesty of a sublime life, and the perpetual growth, perpetually progressive, of that delight, that beauty, that greatness. Then everything has a meaning, then one no longer regrets having struggled and suffered, one has only the enthusiasm to realise the divine goal, and one plunges headlong into the realisation with the certitude of the goal and victory. But to know that, one must stop being egoistic, being a separate person turned in on oneself and cut off from the supreme origin. That is what must be done: to cast off one’s ego. Then one can know the true goal – and this is the only way! To cast off one’s ego, to let it fall off like a useless garment. The result is worth the efforts that must be made. And then, one is not all alone on the way. One is helped, if one has trust. If you have had even a second’s contact with the Grace – that marvellous Grace which carries you along, speeds you on the path, even makes you forget that you have to hurry – if you have had only a second’s contact with that, then you can strive not to forget. And with the candour of a child, the simplicity of a child for whom there are no complications, give yourself to that Grace and let it do everything. What is necessary is not to listen to what resists, not to believe what contradicts – to have trust, a real trust, a confidence which makes you give yourself fully without calculating, without bargaining. Trust! The trust that says, “Do this, do this for me, I leave it to You.” That is the best way. – The Mother *( Title by the sender ) |
| All extracts and quotations from the written works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are copyright Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry -605002 India |